The present disclosure relates to side vehicle body structure for vehicles which include a pillar member and methods for manufacturing a vehicle pillar member, and belongs to the production engineering field of vehicle bodies.
On each side of a vehicle body for vehicles such as automobiles, a roof side rail extending in the longitudinal direction of the vehicle body along the side of a roof panel and a side sill extending in the longitudinal direction of the vehicle body along the side of a floor panel are sometimes coupled via a center pillar extending in the vertical direction of the vehicle body.
In this type of side vehicle body structure, the center pillar functions to restrain deformation of a roof due to load applied from above the vehicle body (roof crush) and to distribute load applied in the lateral direction of the vehicle body to the roof side rail, the side sill, etc.
The center pillar typically includes an inner pillar member and an outer pillar member which are joined together, and a closed section that is continuous in the vertical direction of the vehicle body is formed between these members. The center pillar can thus effectively perform its various functions.
For example, as disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2014-193712, a pillar member forming a center pillar may be formed by a body panel forming the closed section described above and a reinforcing panel placed on and joined to a part of the body panel. In the pillar member disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2014-193712, the reinforcing panel is disposed on an intermediate part in the longitudinal direction of the body panel in order to improve flexural rigidity of the pillar member.